Datebook Diner: Food outshines ambiance at Timothy's

The dining area at Timothy's. (Credit: BILL NEIBERGALL/DES MOINES REGISTER)

Some diners insist that they don't care that much about a restaurant's ambiance as long as the food is good. The assertion reminds me of the guys I knew in college who swore they didn't like women who wore makeup, yet somehow always ended up with model-beautiful dates.

When it comes to restaurants, ambiance matters, especially as the price for dinner climbs. Case in point is Timothy's Steakhouse and Pub. The food here is just as good, and in some ways better, than other similar Italian/steakhouse restaurants that are drawing respectable crowds in these challenging times.

If as much care went into the dining room as the food, we might have encountered more diners on the nights of our two visits.

Menu: The menu brims with classic favorites, including Chicken Marsala, Shrimp Scampi, barbecue ribs, pasta and steaks as well as prime rib on Fridays and Saturdays.

Tastes: Bursting with briny, sea-mineraly goodness, the oysters Florentine starter, served over a bed of sparkling green spinach and topped with a light-handed Cajun cream sauce, jiggled and crunched in all the right ways. Soups, including a richly stocked French onion and a homespun-tasting cheesy-potato also attested to a committed kitchen.

The garlicky shrimp scampi served on linguine brought some good seafood - not of Splash's caliber, mind you, but a giant step above the usual tasteless shrimp at mid-range restaurants.

Prime rib was the kind of juicy and marbled, full-flavored cut that you often have to shell out some major cash to enjoy. The $21 price tag here was more than fair. The barbecue ribs were fine if uneventful. Because the Steak de Burgo arrived more rare than ordered, my dining companion traded it for my ribs. The steak itself was a marvelous cut, but surprisingly, the sauce offered very little of butter-and-garlic hedonism so loved in this classic.

Ambiance: Low lighting, some vibrant art and white tablecloths do little to disguise the otherwise sparse and functional look of the dining room, banquet chairs and all. Amateurish moves in the front of the house - insipid muzak-jazz playing too loudly, doors to a less-than-lovely service area propped open, views of the linen nook, an unlit candle on our table one night - might not matter so much when paying $12 for the pasta choices. But when you're shelling out up to $31 for a steak, loosey-goosey doesn't fly.

Bottom line: Timothy's serves well-crafted food - some fine-tuning of the dining room could make a good dining experience into a great one.

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